Hannah 'pleased with Spartacus return'

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Spartacus: Blood and Sand star John Hannah has revealed that he is excited to be returning to his role of Batiatus in new prequel series Gods of the Arena.

The character was killed off in the first season finale of Blood and Sand. Hannah told IGN that he was pleased to be able to reprise the role.

"It's a deep shame for me not being able to be back for more," he admitted. "But six episodes is great and so is being with Lucy [Lawless] again. Just working that old magic, you know. It was a lot of fun. The show is so great. It's a gift for an actor."

He added that he was intrigued by the scripts for Spartacus as they were unlike any other program on television.

"You read scripts and you see 'oh, a cop show' or 'oh, a doctor show'. There's so much procedural stuff now, and you don't get a lot of stuff that's this fresh and this well-written," he explained.

The actor also defended the Starz drama's coarse dialog.

"I thought the dialog was great," he said. "But just like a new language, or Shakespeare, or anybody's translation of something, it took a bit of a time to get used to. It was tough to learn, but it was so good that I wanted to learn it."